Thursday, January 7, 2010

Snow

Can't get to work today, not exactly snowed in, but I can't get my car up the hill at the end of my street because it's a skidpan and the bottom end is closed off to stop a rat run onto a small industrial estate.
Someone has nicked the salt bins that were at the top and bottom of the hill and a car crashed into a lamppost, then almost hit another car trying to come down the hill when I was trying to get up it.
I know residential areas aren't priorities for gritting, but it would have been nice. It would have been nice to have some salt bins too (with salt) but the gits that nicked them have put paid to that.
Fortunately my boss is understanding, he managed to get cover for me and I'll ring him later to let him know if I can get out of the street for tomorrow. I hate doing this, I know it wasn't my fault (I suppose I could have parked elsewhere, but I didn't) but someone else has been inconvenienced by me and my working ethics make me uncomfortable doing it to them.




It's snowing even as I write this, doesn't look good for tomorrow, still it is pretty to look at.


Update: I finally managed to get out of the street at 14:30, thanks to a very civic minded pensioner digging away at the ice and snow and clearing a way for me. I finally returned to help the guy clear away the top (trickiest) part of the hill so his Mrs could escape too. Salt turned up off a wagon about 15:30 (ish Thanks to John Ward and his contacts on Medway Council) and we got those who wanted out of the street out in time for dusk when it started to freeze again.





This is the car of the poor guy who hit the lamppost, it's an 09 Jag, I would have wept myself, now I'm just considering buying a 4 x 4 for next year.

5 annotations:

James Higham said...

Walk?

Quiet_Man said...

Not 15 miles at -6. I can wrap up warm with the best of them, I even have the cold weather gear to survive the conditions. But a 3+ hour walk in, a 12 hour shift then a 3+ hour walk back seems excessive even by the daftness I can come up with at times. No buses and a disrupted train service made it tricky too.

Anonymous said...

I once drove home at tea time to feed the dog and let him out (5 miles), couldn't get the car all the way home, I walked the 5 miles back to work for the evening shift (knowing I'd have to walk home again at 11pm), and was 18 minutes late. My boss said... in view of the conditions, I will only dock you 15 minutes... (he could have stopped 1/2 hour). How generous!

But I expect your boss is a nicer man than mine was.

John M Ward said...

It's a nightmare time in residential areas on hills, and it is true that the primary routes take precedence over secondary roads and pavements. In Rainham they were even hand-clearing pavements…

In your area, QM, householders have been witnessed taking the salt away in buckets for their drives etc, so the salt has run out in places with none left for the road: this is apart from the theft of the two bins you mentioned.

Fortunately your local councillors were already onto the problem, and the wagon you saw a few hours ago actually beat my message to those councillors by half an hour — so it wasn't my doing, even indirectly(!)

subrosa said...

Back in 1981 I lived in Shropshire at the bottom of a cul-de-sac. We were a friendly bunch. When the snow and big freeze came everyone got out with a shovel, dug their own driveways, the roads and the pavements to allow all of us access to the main road.

It was hard work that night I remember. Many of us worked until midnight, but we knew if more cars drove on the snow then it would be impossible to shift.

Doubt if that would ever happen these days a wee bunch of neighbours working together like that. Such a shame.